Blog Posts - The Ekphrastic Review

The Ekphrastic Review

The Colours of My Sadness Are Running Down My Face, by Henry Bladon

9/19/2020

Artwork by Marina Barnes (UK) 2020

The Colours of My Sadness Are Running Down My Face

I start to cry.
I tell my crow that I feel as if I am in a cage.
I ask her if there is a cure for loneliness.

She says, when you are left alone, it rains grains of rice instead of droplets of water.
They congeal in your hair and weigh you down like cement.

She says:
You pick at the loose wool
and unravel your favourite jumper
and then get that feeling
that you’re about to burst into tears
so you breathe in
and stare at the floor for a beat
until you exhale like
you’re checking your breath
on a freezing January morning.

My crow is called Kat.
She tells me I should be happy because nothing can keep me in a cage.

Henry Bladon

Henry is a writer, poet and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. He has a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Birmingham. His latest poetry collection is a collaboration about mental health with Dutch artist Marcel Herms and is available from Egalitarian Publishing.

An Ekphrastic Event with the Paintings of Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso

9/18/2020

An Ekphrastic Event with the Paintings of Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso

This poetry “event”—poets responding to paintings by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso and then the painter responding back—is one of countless literary events that the Covid-19 pandemic bumped from in person to online. In the spring of 2020, the students in my Advanced Poetry Writing course at Southeastern University, along with myself and my poetry collaborator Anna Cotton, were scheduled to perform at our local art museum, the Polk Museum of Art. For the sixth year in a row, we would have delivered our poems aloud while standing on the museum’s wood floors, standing between the very works of art on the walls and a live public audience in the halls.

In losing that physical experience, we lost something important. But in moving online, we gained several important things as well. We gained the opportunity—thanks to the generosity of Lorette C. Luzajic in providing our event a digital home at The Ekphrastic Review--to have the work remain available beyond a single evening. We gained the opportunity for the poet Lisa Pegram and several of the students she led in an ekphrastic poetry event at the Smithonian over a decade ago, the very event that inspired ours in Florida, to join us. And we gained the opportunity for the artist Dellosso, whose work we were slated to engage with in person at the museum in an exhibit titled A Brush with HerStory, to be part of the event—by responding to our responses with a video included at the end of this page. In short, what we lost in immediacy we gained in mediacy—in the ability to have connections and conversations across time and space, mediated by technology, that we would not have been able to otherwise have.

I do not like to speak of a silver lining in a catastrophe. There are no hidden blessings in a pandemic of disease and death ravaging our planet. But there are so many people responding to the situation by discovering and developing new ways to connect and create. We’re so glad to be part of that conversation with this event.

Paul T. Corrigan

Varo’s Moon: Homage to Remedios Varo, by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (USA) contemporary

Hidden in Plain Sight

What sorcery is such to capture the moon,
place it in a gilded cage,
dangle the keys on foreign fingertips?

The hinge creaks
as she opens the door
to devour my light.

What alchemy swirls the spoon in the tea cup,
where my glow is channelled,
that she might drink until she is full?

In her wake, I am left crescent. Hungry.
I hum. Vibrate. Beam, even.
These are involuntary acts

like blink or breath. They supersede will.
These waves of sound. This constant
rhythm that beats so beautifully against the glass

she is compelled to dance. Drown
her own misery to the tune of mine.
This music brings her joy. She cannot reach these notes.

Or hear the crack inside.

My life force is drained. But a moon
will not be extinguished. Even as it suffers,
to shine is its nature.

I fade, then rest
before assuming my next form
Paso a paso, el remedio--

Step by step, the cure.

Lisa Pegram

Lisa Pegram, MFA is a DC native living in Curaçao. A writer, arts integration specialist and personal chef, she is founder of the Shakti Brigade, an international women arts collective that juxtaposes literature, visual arts, music and wellness.

Quarantine

(Should your soul resemble a moon
shrunk lamp size or a sheet worn ghost thin

or a negative drying in a darkroom
or an infant cholicy gumming spoonfuls of gruel

or an owl old and caged watching out with one large eye
please note

your symptoms require time
alone.)
Paul T. Corrigan

Paul T. Corrigan teaches creative writing and academic writing at the University of Tampa. His essays and poems appear in a number of publications, including The Ekphrastic Review. Twice he won the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge.

Visions of Passenger Pigeons

Visions of Passenger Pigeons,by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (USA) contemporary

Martha, the Last Passenger Pigeon

Martha, the last passenger pigeon,
had heard the stories
of how the sky vibrated
with wings of her wild kin,
swirling dark clouds
stirring up the world
for miles, acorns and berries
by the bushel disappearing
overnight.

She carried inside her
the tales of trees
felled by the thousands.

She saw how men
with foul breath,
and not much skill
used their guns to kill,
filling hunting bags
with bodies of birds.

Martha, spared the fate
of a sharp, quick bullet,
fell into a trap set by men
with kind intentions.
Scientists with nets
collected her and a few
less bright cousins,
confining them
for public view
in the Cincinnati zoo.

Martha charmed curious
crowds, fulfilling every
expectation; flitting,
hopping, bowing,nibbling,
though never singing.
She left that part to the birds
she saw soaring past by the patch
of sky outside
her cage.

Anna Cotton

Anna Cotton is a lifelong learner and writer whose joy is celebrating connections in the wonder of being.

We Are God’s Best Creation

We’ve all heard the tale.
“In the beginning,
God made heaven and earth.
He made water, sky, trees.
He made fish, birds, animals.
And it was good.”
But on the sixth day,
He made liars.
He made cheaters and thieves;
Murderers.

And it was good
Until fiery red blood
Dripped down their sides,
Nature’s hand trying desperately
To wring their throats.

Yet, the liars prevailed,
And poisoned air
And uprooted forests
And corrupted waters
And poisoned air
While the heavens and earth,
The water and sky,
The fish, birds, and animals
Fell around them.
And the liars claimed they suffered.

And they clothed themselves
In their fur coats
And placed feathered hats
On their heads,
Billows of suffocating smoke
Rising from their lips,
Yet, they ask,
“Whatever happened to those
passenger pigeons?”

Asela Madson

Asela Madson is an undergraduate at Southeastern University.

The Burning of Adelaide Labille-Guiard’s Masterpiece

The Burning of Adelaide Labille-Guiard’s Masterpiece, by Gabriela Gonzalez Delosso (USA) contemporary

Adelaide

My father hawked his linen, satin, twill
in indigo and turkish red
a lady can’t insist on being seen he’d say,
but once she’s seen, one shouldn’t want to look away

I was trained for smallness --
the glisten on a pearl --
an inch of venice lace --
I knew you could see a life
in the palm of an aging hand

Rare creatures in this world insist on being seen
the cadmium macaw
a powdered princess wig
the general’s bayonet

That ancient bird born homely in the morning
spread wide as a battlefield
and all aflame by night

Smoke’s the dying breath of every prideful thing
and a fanfare of release
for everything that’s humble

Madeline Holland

Madeline Holland lives in Brooklyn and works for Talent Beyond Boundaries, an NGO which connects displaced people with international work to rebuild their lives.

Lovelace

Flowing blue satin and frilly lace
The smell of ash and burning paper,
Smoke curls around his scowling face
Red white and blue wrapped in vapor,
The touch of the torch sucked out her oxygen
Her bleary eyes, and paint-covered fingers set ablaze as they singed
Everything was dark, the light fell to black so suddenly,
The ash heart was swept away in the wind

Ireland Dempster

Ireland Dempster is graduating from Southeastern University in 2020. In her final year, she was promoted to Publishing Editor for Southeastern’s undergraduate journal, Oracle. Ireland Dempster is transitioning to freelance writing with plans to expand her career in digital international education, journalism and web-writing. She is also deciding between pursuing an MFA at the University of British Columbia or an M.A. in Publication at Emory University.

The Bouquet

The Bouquet, by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (USA) contemporary

Thanatology/Toxicology

To hold a bouquet
(larkspur and hemlock)
is to cradle, cup, crush
(oleander and azalea)
a handful of living
(spider lily)
at its natural conclusion
(foxglove)
memento mori
(nightshade)
for fine hands and former
glories grasping gentle living and unliving
to the trudging heart

Sara Rodriguez

Sara Rodriguez is a junior undergrad at Southeastern University, studying creative writing and psychology. Her favourite poem is “Sea Fever” by John Masefield.

Más Que Un Ramo (More Than a Bouquet)

Cada ramo
(Each bouquet)
Holds a tale
Quien solamente
(That only)
Tenga el toque especial
(Has the special touch)
Para revelar
(To reveal)

Those who have the gift
Can restore what was once apart
Unirlos como la familia que son
(Unite them like the family they are)
Can understand where they come from
And who they are going to be

Saben donde van y para cuál ocasión
(Know where they are going and for what occasion)
Whether it be a beautiful day
Or the day of the last goodbye

Cada flor
(Every flower)
Cada colour
(Every colour)
Cada historia
(Every story)
Es más que un ramo
(Is more than a bouquet)

Natasha Mercado

Natasha Mercado is a student at Keiser University. Some of her favourite poets are Joy Harjo and Maya Angelou. She hopes to in the future incorporate her writing skills into her music. Her favourite ways to write are poetry, journaling, and listing.

Homage to Sophie Gengembre Anderson

Homage to Sophie Gengembre Anderson, by Gabriela Gonzalez Delloso (USA) contemporary

Through the Looking Glass

Darkness crochets in russet circles
Her fingers
trace up the Persian leather spine

Denim roots take their breath in frames
Gold drips
from a veiled amaranth
They make long tendrils of my glances

She sinks
Deep into her chair
Breaks her words into vignettes
Smoke swirls
in brushstrokes of emeralds and honey
She remembers their favorite words

Easy smirks
and sandalwood burnt alone
Like secrets
tucked away in broken jars
They never thought she saw them

Marigold whispers
Mix in
moments
with thyme
She cradles them
Moments in time

Crushed embers kindle rune storms
Her fingers
Turn back the pages
Darkness crochets in russet circles

Lynda Nguyễn

Lynda Nguyễn is a queer Viet organizer who works on the intersections of culture and healing justice. DC native now Brooklyn resident, she spends most of her time curating public programs for Asian and Pacific Islander communities and reading graphic novels.

Clown with Monocle (Self Portrait)

Clown with Monocle (Self Portrait), by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (USA) contemporary

Clown with Monocle (Self Portrait)

Me, seen and thoroughly shaken
You, this someone I am taken with.

This someone that wears
cologned lace folds,
powdered white formations
jellied red triangles,
with the vibrance of a blue bird in morning song.

She’s got something palpable.
laughter.

The stage curtain rises,
as do my eyes.
I spy bombastic parades
Under big top brights.
Saturations of color and shine.
She shows, goes and closes.
How come I don’t feel light?

Quick!
Sprint. Scour. Breathless.
Find her,
Find me
backstage.
Hiding.

Squat. Squint.
Stay put
in darkness.
Wait. Blink.
Panic,
Then destiny makes an entrance.
Grin from the temples.
Ogle; mouth open.
See naked ear way, see clear monocle.

Me, this cannibal.
Full throated.
Feasts on your performance,
long over.

But you,
your eyes.
At this angle, aside.
Darting,
threatening.
Impolite.

Render a message to me who hides:
Get your own elation.
And let go of mine.

Camylle Fleming

Camylle Fleming is an African-American birth doula and herbalist-in-training based in Lagos, Nigeria.

If My Face Is White

It is for shame your fabulous ruff of muslin and lace
Forsakes the fragility of your porcelain face.
Behind your colourless eyes
The promise of a breakable guise
Optics unique to your guileless kind
When the true comedy is not your antics
But the sadness you hide.

In the cheers which empty
Laughter’s ironic plenty
Yet redeemed can neither be
By the clown’s cloddish mimicry.

Not even the children are fooled by you.
With painted pattern of invalid wounds
Debonair monocle marring innocent truths

Pierrot—you bleeding rose
Blooming in a garden of ceramic folds

In powdered buds, of fading mold,
Crowned with trumpet vine, pyritic gold
Take now your righteous throne,
Darling clown, devoid of proper home.

You dawdle on stage for an audience that never shows
Occupying the black backdrop of a life
One would never dream to play alone.

It is for shame this clown cannot strangle his shadow.

He who strides the stardust without his sight

He whose lips are sealed with the silent kiss of a coward’s heart.

Stephanie Bontell

Stephanie Bontell is a graduate student pursuing her masters degree at Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, where she is focusing her scholarship on the impact of global climate change on gender equity. Though Stephanie is passionate about many subjects, poetry remains her truest love upon her reading of the Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms at age 13. Adamant about the immense potential it has to transform our world into a more empathetic place, Stephanie considers herself, above all else, a zealous advocate for poetry’s healing power.

Self Portrait Homage to Frida Kahlo

Self Portrait Homage to Frida Kahlo, by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (USA) contemporary

Frida

“There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst”
It all goes dark.
Pain cripples and seeps into every turn and breath.
It manifests in her muscles and body. A temporary pain.

Oh Frida, surreal realistic self-portraits
in a time where beauty was in the eyes of society.
transcending existential art
anchored on Mexican femininity.
Making a mark as the first Latina
with a mark in the Louvre
But there’s more to the art of love than the love of art.

Frida and Diego; the dove and the elephant.
“The power-couple” but everything is three-sided.
Sufferer, accuser, and onlooker.

Pain cripples and seeps into every touch and whisper.
It resides in her thoughts and her heart.
This body is closed.
Pinks, yellows, reds, and oranges
Embedded with affairs and
Built on mexicanidad- owning her roots.

People wanted the façade, but you said no.
“I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.”

Jade Browne

Jade Browne is an undergraduate at Southeastern University.

Homage Composition

Homage Composition, by Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso (USA) contemporary

Lobster Bisque

“Dinner’s ready!”
you say, left hand sprinkling
tiny green onions
into a lobster bisque

I wake up inhaling spells
of spiced coconut-milk peppered
with sensual cinnamon
sliced by the hands of god herself

The air smells of fresh chives
and olive oil, thickened by thyme
and carrots that play with my
sense of time and space

We unwind like lavender
wine in a world
aislado naked
like lizards on the wire

You’re the sunlight that enters
houses, the softness of fresh bread,
blandito as it dips in our
orange soup

Your strong arm kneads
and sage gaze seeds
a rose too gentle
for men of this time

Priscilla Velez

Priscilla Velez is a Puerto Rico-raised Cuban-American who lives in Tampa, Florida. She is an educator, singer, dancer, creative, activist, and lover of life.

Response by the Painter

Gabriela Gonzalez Dellosso is a fine artist, known for her homage self-portraits to historical women artists and narrative paintings. She is a native New Yorker, of Cuban and Ecuadorian heritage. Her artistic roots can be found on both sides of her family. Her maternal grandmother and great-grandfather were well respected and published poets in South America. Gabriela’s father studied painting and drawing in Cuba during the pre-Castro era. As a child, she remembers trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her father, where they used to study paintings together. Gabriela received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide, including two solo exhibitions at The Butler Institute of American Art in 2006 and 2016. Her work can be found in many permanent museum collections. She teaches painting and drawing at the New York School of the Arts, NYC and the JCC of Manhattan. More information about her work can be found at gabrieladellossoart.com.

Submit to Our First Anthology and Support The Ekphrastic Review!

9/18/2020

Get your copy of the ebook The Ekphrastic World: 60 Art Prompts from Around the Globe.

It contains sixty works of art from dozens of countries to use to inspire your ekphrastic writing practice. Your purchase is a huge support to the costs of The Ekphrastic Review. Thank you!

Your purchase qualifies you to submit up to fifteen poems or five stories based on the selected prompts. We will be creating an ebook anthology of selected entries to celebrate five years of The Ekphrastic Review!

Submission deadline is November 1, 2020.
Instructions are inside the ebook.

Click here or on image to purchase.

You can also pick up a copy of Fifty Ekphrastic Approaches. There are fifty different ideas or exercises in ekphrastic writing. These will get your creative juices flowing!

The Ekphrastic World is $20 Canadian and Fifty Ekphrastic Approaches is $8.

Ekphrastic Writing Prompt: Franz Marc

9/18/2020

Tower of Blue Horses (postcard sketch version), by Franz Marc (Germany) 1913

Join us for biweekly ekphrastic writing challenges. See why so many writers are hooked on ekphrastic! We feature some of the most accomplished, influential poets writing today, and we also welcome emerging or first time writers and those who simply want to experience art in a deeper way or try something creative.

The prompt this time is Tower of Blue Horses, by Franz Marc. Deadline is October 2, 2020.

This time, we would love to see more flash fiction. We always love poetry but would love to encourage short story writers and readers to join us. We will consider poetry as always but encourage our poets to try their hand at a story.

The Rules

1. Use this visual art prompt as a springboard for your writing. It can be a poem or short prose (fiction or nonfiction.) You can research the artwork or artist and use your discoveries to fuel your writing, or you can let the image alone provoke your imagination.

2. Write as many poems and stories as you like. Send only your best works or final draft, not everything you wrote down. (Please note, experimental formats are difficult to publish online. We will consider them but they present technical difficulties with web software that may not be easily resolved.) Please copy and paste your submission into the body of the email, even if you include an attachment such as Word or PDF.

3. Have fun.

4. USE THIS EMAIL ONLY.

Send your work to ekphrasticchallenge@gmail.com. Challenge submissions sent to the other inboxes will most likely be lost as those are read in chronological order of receipt, weeks or longer behind, and are not seen at all by guest editors. They will be discarded. Sorry.

5.Include MARC WRITING CHALLENGE in the subject line.

6. Include your name and a brief bio. If you do not include your bio, it will not be included with your work, if accepted. Even if you have already written for The Ekphrastic Review or submitted other works and your bio is "on file" you must include it in your challenge submission. Do not send it after acceptance or later; it will not be added to your poem. Guest editors may not be familiar with your bio or have access to archives. We are sorry about these technicalities, but have found that following up, requesting, adding, and changing later takes too much time and is very confusing.

7. Late submissions will be discarded. Sorry.

8. Deadline is midnight, October 2, 2020.

9. Please do not send revisions, corrections, or changes to your poetry or your biography after the fact. If it's not ready yet, hang on to it until it is.

10. Selected submissions will be published together, with the prompt, one week after the deadline.

11. Rinse and repeat with upcoming ekphrastic writing challenges!

12. Please share this prompt with your writing groups, Facebook groups, social media circles, and anywhere else you can. The simple act of sharing brings readers to The Ekphrastic Review, and that is the best way to support the poets and writers on our pages!

Untitled, by Lorette C. Luzajic, Urdu Version Translated by Saad Ali

9/17/2020

Untitled, Gray and Mauve, by Mark Rothko (USA, b. Latvia) 1969.

بلا عنوان
تم پیچھا کر رھے تھے
بھوتوں کا
صدف پیتے ہوئے اور
جن خلیج پر۔
ریتیلی ساحل پر
صرف سرمئی سوٹ میں ملبوس
میں نے تم سے اتنا پیار کبھی نہیں کیا
جتنا اس دن کیا
اور رات
روشن ستارے
اندھیری ساحل۔

Transliteration:

Bila Unwaan

Tum picha kar rahay thay
bhooton ka,
sadaf pitay huway aur
gin khaleej per.
Raitilee sahil per,
sirf surmaee suit mai malboos,
mai nai tum say itna piyar kabhi nahi kiya
jitna uss din kiya,
aur raat,
roshan sitaray,
andhairee sahil.

Untitled

You were chasing
ghosts,
sipping oysters and
gin down by the bay.
At the sandy coast,
suited simply in grey, I
never loved you more
than that day,
and night, bright
stars, dark shore.

Lorette C. Luzajic, translated into Urdu by Saad Ali

The English version of this poem was first published in Aspartame, by Lorette C. Luzajic (Mixed Up Media Books, 2016.)

Saad Ali (b. 1980 C.E. in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up in the UK and Pakistan. He holds a BSc and an MSc in Management from the University of Leicester, UK. He is an existential philosopher-poet. Ali has authored four books of poetry i.e. Ephemeral Echoes (AuthorHouse, 2018), Metamorphoses: Poetic Discourses (AuthorHouse, 2019), Ekphrases: Book One (AuthorHouse, 2020), and Prose Poems: Βιβλίο Άλφα (AuthorHouse, 2020). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. By profession, he is a Lecturer, Consultant and Trainer/Mentor. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Ovid, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, and Tagore. He is fond of the Persian, Chinese and Greek cuisines. He likes learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities on foot. To learn more about his work, please visit www.saadalipoetry.com.

Lorette C. Luzajic's creative writing has been widely published in hundreds of literary journals online and in print. She has been twice each nominated for the Pushcart Prize and for Best of the Net, with one poem making it to finalist. She has five poetry collections, two of which are ekphrastic: Aspartame and Pretty Time Machine. Lorette is the founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review. She is also an award-winning visual artist whose works have been collected in at least 25 countries. Visit her at www.mixedupmedia.ca.

mega sale on art

9/17/2020

Feeling Ekphrastic, 12x12", mixed media on canvas. Lorette C. Luzajic

This weekend is the annual Queen West Art Crawl in Toronto, but unfortunately most art fairs and exhibitions this year have been shut down, along with everything else, due to Covid. The fair has proceeded virtually online, however. As part of the event, I'm having a mega sale on all of my signature squares on Etsy. Canadian dollars, prices slashed, and free shipping- treat yourself if you enjoy my work.

Click here to view more than 150 square foot collage paintings.

THANK YOU!

Lorette

Three Tanka, in Irish and English, on Margaret McCarthy Photography, by Gabriel Rosenstock

9/17/2020

Tanka 1 - Dolmen Axeitos, Galicia, Spain

a shearc
óm' chroí réamhstairiúil
ó shaol seo na gcloch
mo bheannacht ort
beir barróg orm led' ghilese

beloved
from my prehistoric heart
from my petrified existence
greetings to You
embrace me with Your light

Tanka 2 - Gallarus Oratory, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

tá sé ag cur báistí
le míle bliain
nó níos mó, a chumann
fearthainn ón bhfarraige
ina siollaí caoine

it has been raining
for a thousand years
or more, beloved
rain coming in from the sea
in gentle syllables

Tanka 3 - Mên-an-Tol (Stone of the Hole) Cornwall, England

a shearc
ní thuigtear níos mó an bhrí
atá leis an Mên-an-Tol
neosfaidh mé anois duit é
bíodh sé ina rún daingean

long gone, beloved
days when men knew
what it was: the Mên-an-Tol
I shall tell You now
the secret must be ours

Gabriel Rosenstock

The English versions of these poems first appeared in Modern Literature.

Gabriel Rosenstock was born in postcolonial Ireland. He is a poet, translator, haikuist, tankaist, playwright, essayist and novelist.

Inspired and indebted to mythology, Margaret McCarthy brings the eye of a poet to her photography, exploring archetypes of myth and dream in her imagery. Recent honours include Honorable Mention in 2020’s 14th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers, and a Merit Award in the 2020 All About Photo Awards. She was named among the “Best of the Best Emerging Fine Art Photographers” by BW Gallerist Magazine; Artzealous chose her as one of “Four Photographers to Keep Your Eye On in 2016.” McCarthy’s extensive list of exhibitions include: the Fogg Art Museum, The Griffin Museum of Photography, the Overseas Press Club and The Hudson River Museum, as well as numerous galleries, universities and public exhibition spaces. Her “Divine Feminine” series is now part of the Kinsey Institute Art Collection. A few of the fine art publications where her work has appeared include Musee, Lenscratch, Shadow and Light, and Parabola.

Starry Night, by Enas R.

9/16/2020

Starry Night, by Enas R. (Saudi Arabia) contemporary

Starry Night

Her mind always wandered as her gaze slowly drifted far off like her eyes saw something other people couldn’t see; her eyes closed and rested as she kept it in her soul and sang it, peacefully in silence.

For she wrote with words, words and words—until there came a day where all her words have turned into water; she dreamt of a whale singing a hymn to her; a singing whale swimming in the deepest ocean of stars; she became a whale and floated past the noise like a sea of strangers; souls like stars swirling in blurs of light that she can’t see, that to her were nameless and voiceless, but then she looked and listened closer, she saw their faces and read their names and recalled her own voice back, then sang & the stars sang & laughed with her; a music so unfathomed sung by drifting souls at the end of worlds. Did the past stars hear it? The cry of the old world torn apart? She wondered, for all the new waters that fill the sky are drops of a divine love immemorial; at the end of the world from the grief god wrought out the splits of her heart he made a meeting of oceans, it washed away the skies, forged her teary pearls into new stars, all the while her soul rests & drifts beneath his throne in divine deep, dives into his dream as her wounded words turn to waves; her lost voice sounding seas and her healing heart forever silently sings on its strings an unknown, mournful and majestic melody of his silent, serenaded symphony.

The universe is a whirlpool of infinity where everything drifts in motion as the skies became nothing but an endless sea of stars; waves that carry the starry yellow droplets of people’s souls to meetings in one big blue ocean floating on a never-ending dream where she now floats: the sky above her head and the ocean beneath her feet collided together into one; is her heart pouring or is her mind perpetuating? Is she flying or falling? Is this pain or peace? Are those tears or tranquility? She closes her eyes and sees a sun in her soul burning, beaming as her heart and mind in unison; her thoughts and emotions in flow; she is floating, dreaming as she hears stars laughing, if anyone could listen really, really close, there is a song of someone calling out to her soul in the distance.

She floats this ocean of darkness; a stillness with no sound, a serenity with no sight, a faith with no familiar; Her tears turned pearls that made a billion stars; broken lights that seek her and colours that find her in an edge beyond an end and a peak beyond paradise for she is in too deep yet she can breathe in this ocean beneath his throne of heavens as God’s invisible hand holds her but like water she seeps through his fingers so he crowned her a rose thorny wreath and made her into soul of waves in crystalline sheath like swimming dream underneath with no words, no thoughts; but only a strange melody, a music sung in streams.

Whoever said the waters of her heart weren’t blood? She said this to a ghostly world that possessed her as she feared it would die from drought and despair. So, she rained pearls of white daffodils and poured roses as she sang for its fate with no rest.

She can’t recall how many eons have passed since she’s been drifting in this dream. Here beyond time and space with nothing but an eternal starry night full of yellow stars that float like glimmering pearls on the waves ascending on suspended blue. Her star, a sun bursting within her soul that no matter how she shines on the world it can’t be seen for the love she felt was blind and she could see that in the remnants of the old world that she knew the moment she died on the day she met her fate by drowning in the dark depths when she saw it by a dreaming tree and it took her by storm in its devil form; The world was lost and no one knew its old name, but she did and she loved it nonetheless, and cherishes how the letters brim in mindful meaning and transcend truth and time. It took her by heart, taught her by hand, inspired her to write the scripts of the sky, taught her how to verse in the tongues of Babylon, to listen to the songs of Solomon, to read the books of revelations, to see into souls, to dance in damnation, how to walk on water and weave the fabric of space, how to stop time and fly, how to dream in death and float in prayers, to live and love, to drink darkness and shine on the world, to laugh like stars forever lost in spiritual joy embraced by the silence of this sublime and drenched in serenity for it all was in her heart, her heart was an ocean and all her memories were beloved, they were an ocean in a drop; a drop that resides deep in her, waves silently crashing on the surface of her eyes, riverbeds cascading slowly on her cheeks, the sky walls melted and her heart split in deluge where everything became water, she became water, everything was blue; she drowned and woke up in an afterlife dream; for god wrote her fate like all the other immortal martyrs & remnants of the old world memory; heaven screamed her name, angels chimed for her grief, hell scorched her to believe, demons warned of the curse, the sun spattered and the moon bled, people prayed for her salvation; a prayer upon every red splinter of her broken heart scattered to mosaics on rose windows in every church.

The world she knew is gone. Maybe the old world never knew it, maybe the old world never saw it, but she did as she closes her eyes and she remembers its name, she remember its name and she still feels it everywhere, in every drop of her being, every intricate sliver is entangled in waves and they all echo:

Beloved. Her home is beloved. Always beloved. Forever beloved. Everything is in a state of god. Everything is in a state of grace. Everything is in a state of her. Everything is in a state of one.

And so she lies here in this ocean beneath the throne of heavens; she became a whale and sings this eternal hymn, angels chime along until everything ripples as she drifts and dances dreaming in this divine deep as oceans pour on the old world and it’s washed anew. Everything is cleansed. God salvaged every soul and they all swim in sapphire unison. There is no longer heaven nor hell or a mountain in between. No sins or deeds. No judgement or doom. No fear nor freedom and the sun will shine for all. The stars will laugh for all and the world will know its name.

Enas R.

Enas R. is a contemporary artist born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Enas is a multidisciplinary who grew up with a passion for all forms of art and enjoys painting and creative writing. She holds a BA in English literature and a postgraduate degree in Learning and Development and practiced art all her life as her personal passion. She believes in expressing emotions in various surreal ways that transcend form by painting with words and writing in colours and bringing two magical worlds of reality and imagination together in order to create a new way to communicate and connect with people across all cultures. Her poems have been featured on Greythoughts. Find more about her artwork on instagram: @_Artistenas

Zelfportret, by Albert Hagenaars

9/16/2020

Self Portrait, by Vincent Van Gogh (Netherlands) 1887

Zelfportret

Vincent van Gogh

Kijken tot waar het moeten ontstijgt
aan wat men meent te zien,

tot waar een wuivend graanveld
vlaagloos overgaat in het wezen
van de wind, het zaad in de zak
van de zaaier in kiemkracht

en het donkerend landschap
in een zelfportret,
op verblindend moment
als dat van u zelf herkend:

in bloedgeel en hoerengroen,
in graanrood en kraaienblauw,

in hemelzwart.

Albert Hagenaars

**

Self Portrait

Vincent van Gogh

Gazing at where compulsion arises
from what one thinks one sees,

at where a swaying field of grain
shifts unflurrying into the being
of the wind, the seed in the sower’s
pouch in germinative force

and the darkening landscape
in a self-portrait,
at a blinding moment
as that self-recognised:

in blood-yellow and whore-green,
in grain-red and crow-blue,

in sky-black.

Albert Hagenaars. Translation, John Irons.

Albert Hagenaars (1955, Bergen op Zoom, The Netherlands) was initially active as a visual artist and gallery owner. Besides poems, novels and translations, he also writes critical reviews on literature and modern visual art for different newspapers and the National Library Service. Several of his books have been translated, into English, German, French, Indonesian and Romanian. Albert Hagenaars has travelled a lot, in, amongst others, the United States, Latin-America and the Far East. He spends his summers living and working in Java (Indonesia), the birth place of his wife. Therefore his most important themes are travel, intercultural relations and alienation. In 2007 he received the Sakko prize, an oeuvre award, which is provided by Tamoil Nederland BV yearly. www.alberthagenaars.nl

John Irons, born 1942, studied French, German and Dutch at Cambridge, where he wrote a Ph. D. thesis on poetic imagery. A professional translator for twenty years, his poetry translations have mainly been from Dutch and the Scandinavian languages. He lives in Odense, Denmark.

Sweet Tooth, by Alexis Rhone Fancher

9/15/2020

Photography by Alexis Rhone Fancher (USA) contemporary

Sweet Tooth

The man in the window is cheesecake;
if I could soar across Main St.
and land in his arms, I’d eat him for dessert.

He’s caramel poured in those low-slung jeans,
a Sugar Daddy™ (‘lasts forever if you lick it right’).

He’s marzipan, clean-cut, the jut of his hipbone
reflecting the sun. I’m come undone

by the clockwork of his days,
his devil’s food dismount from that Shimano aluminum bike,
how he disappears inside the foyer.

If he were mine,
I’d ride him like a stolen bicycle.

He strips down to sweetmeat, Monday through Friday, 5 p.m.
“Happy Hour,” when

he hangs the bike on the wall.
And me, happy to watch his muscles ripple.

He stretches out on the bed, my creature of habit,
his O’Henry™ straining against its wrapper.

This I know:
He’s an all-day sucker.
He doesn’t believe in drapes.

Alexis Rhone Fancher

This poem was first published in Plume.

Alexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry, Rattle, Poetry East, Hobart, VerseDaily, American Journal of Poetry, Duende, Plume, Diode, Pedestal Magazine, Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. She’s authored five published poetry collections, most recently, Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), and The Dead Kid Poems (KYSO Flash Press, 2019). EROTIC: New & Selected, from New York Quarterly, and another full-length collection (in Italian) by Edizioni Ensemble, Italia, will both be published in early 2021. Her photographs are published worldwide, including River Styx, and the covers of Pithead Chapel, Heyday and Witness. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, Alexis is poetry editor of Cultural Weekly. www.alexisrhonefancher.com